[ILUG]Can Linux solve a windows problem? Solved!

[Declan Moriarty]

On Mon, 2006-05-08 at 04:23 +0100, Marcus Furlong wrote:

> >> Yeah, it's using the entire disk rather than partitions, so there is no
> >> partition table, but fdisk still tries to read from where it should be.
> > 
> > Remember how floppy disks inherently didn't have partition tables, while
> > hard drives did?  A lot of people seem to have forgotten that
> > distinction in the new millennium, which I guess is understandable --
> > but the former type of device was carried forward into ATAPI (and thus
> > USB and similar flash-memory) devices, as the ATAPI Removable Media
> > Device (ARMD) BIOS Specification, written in 1997 by Compaq and Phoenix.
> > 
> > So, in essence, some flash devices are floppy-like; some are HD-like.
> > More at:  http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6867
> 
> True, I remember a few ARMD devices that couldn't be partitioned, but it's
> been at least a couple of years since I've encountered one (my first 8MB
> USB flash device was one until I learnt my first of many
> USB-flash-devices-don't-like-the-washing-machine lessons). Most of the more
> recent ones tend to be HD-like, but the manufacturers still use the entire
> disk and don't use partitions. However they can still be partitioned and
> the partitions mounted. The only problem with using partitions is that the
> firmware in some mp3 players relies on the fact that there are _not_ any
> partitions, so the FAT regions are not where they are expected to be, and
> it doesn't find any music.. Which is a pity, I liked the idea of being able
> to boot computers with my mp3 player (until it died in a washing
> machine... :)

Success!
Apparently after dosfsck had sorted things, (except for the RO flag) and
hdparm had set that (Except nothing in linux noticed) the XP format
program was stupid enough to format the thing, so all is well. I have my
2 - 250 meg units back, and my comp.science student is nodding sagely
'cos his basic policy of only taking error messages half seriously
worked. OTOH, I am inclined to study error messages and learn from them.
I might call them bull in the end, but it's a considered opinion.

I guess that was an FAT interpretation question, with XP obviously
getting a different set of answers. Life goes on. 





-- 
        With Best Regards,

         Moriarty.